Indiana Rain - The Story behind the Song

Indiana Rain by Sandy Kastel

It was the middle of the night when I woke to the thunder and lightening outside my bedroom window. The road was washed in the light of the full moon as the rain pounded on the pavement and into my consciousness. Mesmerized by the rhythm of the rain and the lights of a passing car washing across the black country road, the story came to life.

I sat on my bed watching for the longest time, letting the melody play in my head over and over, "Indiana Rain, won't you wash away her pain"..until finally I went into the other room and started typing out the words on my laptop.

The story played on in my mind and onto the pages as my heroin came to life, her struggle to go on after losing him. How could she let him go? She felt trapped in the past, in their life before he left and she didn't know how to move on without letting him down. She was caught between the life she had known and the one she had yet to live, the memories still too fresh to fade away into the background with "what might have been" and the reality of the loneliness as it set in. She was a woman struggling to move forward, yet afraid to let go for fear she would forget him, losing him over and over again. What could she do?

As the observer I could see from a distance that she needed to let the Indiana Rain "wash away her tears" to let her live again...

I sat at the computer for eight hours straight that night into the morning without moving. The story was complete. Then came the first demo of the song I made in my home studio with musicians in Las Vegas. The second demo was made in Nashville. Then when producer Ron Aniello selected it as one of my songs on my first original album; we came back to Nashville and Blackbird Studios to record it.

Each time the song has been recorded with a slightly different intro and feel. I imagine the arrangements will change again over time as more singers sing it and musicians play it, discovering their own emotional connection to the story; for I feel it is one of those songs that will pass from generation to generation, resonating with people who have lost someone special in their lives; finding their own struggles to move forward.

It's easy for me to imagine a choir of Angels joining in, a ray of light shining through the dark clouds, lightening flashing in the distance as I sing "Indiana Rain, won't you wash away her pain."